It has long been known to provide a vacuum cleaner with a moveable cleaning head for movement over a floor to clean the floor surface. For convenience of movement, an extended handle is attached to the cleaning head so that the user may stand more or less erect while moving the cleaner head over the floor.
In most standard cleaner head designs, the cleaner head is a planar member with wheels. The handle member is centrally mounted thereon and pivotally connected to the cleaner head. This arrangement is standard for all types of vacuum cleaner heads, including upright vacuum cleaners, canister vacuums and central vacuum cleaning systems. To use the cleaner head, the user holds the end of the handle in one hand and moves the cleaner head about the floor in front of the user by extending an arm outwardly to move the cleaner head away from the user's body, and then bringing their arm back to the user's side to move the cleaner head back towards the user.
The difficulty with centrally mounting the handle on the cleaner head is that, when the user brings their arm back to the user's side, eg., to clean the floor in front of the user's feet, a portion of the cleaner head is directly in front of the user's feet. This can make it difficult for the user to walk forward while cleaning the floor because the user is in danger of stepping on the cleaner head. Further, the interference between the user's feet and the cleaner head limits the amount of carpet which can be cleaned by the user in a single stroke.
In order to overcome this difficulty, the user could position the cleaner head to be displaced to one side of the user so that the cleaner head would contact a portion of the surface to be cleaned that is laterally displaced from the portion over which the user moved. The difficulty with this approach is that the user would have to extend their arm outwardly from their side to hold the handle of the vacuum cleaner. This is not an ergonomic position and can result in the user becoming tired before they have finished using the vacuum cleaner.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved vacuum cleaner handle design providing enhanced ergonomic comfort and convenience for the user.